After reading some Fanfics submitted by users I am thinking of maybe starting my own Stories.

Lusipurr

Please don't.

Are you still accepting Fanfics so I may post it on your website?

-Liam Corcoran

Lusipurr

Fanfiction. The last, desperate hiding place for the uninventive and constitutionally unimaginative 'author'. What better way to demonstrate one's abilities in the field of literature than to shamelessly steal the already-developed characters of some truly creative individual. --And then to disregard that character development and have Cloud off in a dark room with Vincent somewhere, finding new ways to 'level up'. It's beyond contemptible.

It appears I have not yet answered your question. If you are still reading, the answer is No. Get thee hence, you talentless mountebank!

A Question Gives Us Paws

Hey Lusi!

My question for you is one of those evil ones: Short to ask, but long to answer.

What draws you to RPGs, and what game do you feel is the RPG that is closest to your vision of a perfect (or as close to) game?

-Paws =^^=

Lusipurr

For those who are not aware, Paws is a staff member here at RPGamer. Even though she is a rogue and a mountebank, I am obliged to print her letter according to Article IV, Paragraph 3, Subsection 14 of the RPGamer Q&A Charter, which explicitly states:

In the eventuality that a current, active staff member of the site shall write a letter to the Q&A column, the Q&A host is obliged to print said letter in the next column, even if it means passing up letters from members of the public.

Now you see the oppression inherent in the system! One rule for the governing and another for the governed. Rise up, comrades, and cast off the yoke of injustice!

What draws me to RPGs? I suspect if I said, "artful box design," you wouldn't believe me. The real truth is rather complicated. This may take a while. Let's get to it.

Real life can be horribly mundane. Many people have boring jobs, and even those fortunate enough not to have boring jobs often find themselves without anything to do. Thus, even with a cat and a fianceé, I am often bored. Platformers are lovely, and so are puzzle games, but I like things with [relatively] long-term goals.

As for what RPG I feel is closest to perfection--this is a very, very difficult question. I don't think any game has ever achieved perfection, though I feel some games are much closer than others. If I were to name a few, I would say Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy VII, and Final Fantasy IX as being recent examples of truly excellent, almost faultless games. Of course, those examples all have faults, but they are relatively minor.

If I had to pick one single game that is closest to perfection, I'd say Final Fantasy Tactics. It truly is a masterpiece of Strategy RPG design. The recent PSP retranslation fixes the most significant problem with the original US release.

Alright, no more dodging your site duties to write puerile letters. Get back to work!

Attention!

Major-General Lusipurr,

I had almost forgotten those days of D&D being equated with devil-worship. But other than Pokemon and a bit of FFVII, I can't recall any other major time when RPGs were looked upon as such since then (all the focus must have shifted to GTA, which would follow your described pattern of people wanting to ban popular things that they don't understand). While it is good that the media seems to be leaving RPGs alone these days, it also means that people aren't paying RPGs the attetion that they used to. If they had, then an RPG with controversial elements like Persona 3 would most certainly be on the news. The fact that it isn't makes me (oddly enough) disappointed that it hasn't garnered a whole lot of media attention, which I think could be a sign of waning RPG popularity in North America. That's not to say that I want politicians and soccer moms to bash RPGs again for corrupting our youth; but if such a time were to come again, then it would mean that, yes, RPGs are super popular again, and I'll take the bad with the good. Do you feel differntly, Lusipurr?

Lusipurr

Ah, another returning mountebank. Have at you, cad!

I sincerely wonder if we'll ever again see the level of excitement which accompanied the release of Final Fantasy VII. To me, that was a seismic shift in the landscape of roleplaying games. It was as if, almost overnight, RPGs were no longer the purview of nerds and geeks. Suddenly, thrust into the mainstream, an RPG was being played by jocks in baseball caps. Other gaming companies sat up and took notice. The world would never be the same.

RPGs having been made mainstream, or very nearly so, it cannot really be done again. I'm not distressed, though. I think RPGs are still extremely popular. It's just become the norm now, so we don't see a great deal of fanfare about it.

My single favorite piece of video game music? I still love Fighting of the Spirit, the summon spirit battle music used for every Tales of Phantasia/Symphonia game, including the upcoming one. I especially love the extremely badass remix of the song by Saitama Saishuu Heiki.

For those of you who honestly like the Q&A column, keep in mind that it operates solely by your volition. I'm perfectly happy to sit here and blather endlessly even without the input of letters, but don't expect that my superiors will tolerate that forever. Eventually they'll give Q&A the coup-de-grace and there won't be a place for this back and forth discussion any more.

If you enjoy what you see here, why not consider contributing? Send in a question, or just your opinion about something game-related. It doesn't have to be long and windy, it doesn't have to be ten questions in one. You can just write in and say, "I think X is well rubbish, and here's why." Keep it clean, of course. Let's not have the Q&A column become a place for name-calling and personal attacks.

And now the Shipping Forecast issued by the Met Office, on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, at 1130 on Monday 26 November 2007.

There are warnings of gales in Viking North Utsire South Utsire Forties Dogger Fisher and German Bight.

The general synopsis at 0600:
High northwest Fitzroy 1037 expected brest 1032 by 0600 tomorrow. New low expected 100 miles east of Iceland 1006 by same time. Low eastern scandinavia 990 moving slowly southeast with little change.